It’s been a rough year for investors who went with some of the large developers with huge advertising budgets. Already this year we have seen Concrete Equities and Bridgecreek Development run into some serious issues, now Shire International Real Estate Investments has been served with a Class Action Lawsuit.
Shire was issued a cease trading order in Saskatchewan earlier this summer and now has as many as 3,000 investors involved in a $75,000,000,000 lawsuit in an attempt to recover some of their investments. For the whole story you can follow this blog, The Shire Saga.
It’s not that all of these investors were first time investors, or didn’t know what they were getting into. The success of the Real Estate market and the potential for great returns has always had investors flock to these types of opportunities. This same excitement of missing out has always been around, whether it was the stock market, the real estate market or even the gold rush.
Unfortunately it could take years before anything becomes resolved with any of these companies, meanwhile the investors are all hung out to dry. Hopefully some of the allegations that people are throwing out in some of the discussion forums about Ponzi schemes and misappropriation of funds turn out to be false and people are able to receive some of their investments back.
You always have to remember, any type of investment is a risk reward situation. The higher the potential return the higher the risk involved. We have had some very successful investments over the years with many of our partners, friends and investors, but we too have been hit over the last couple of years and had to disappoint some people with the results we have recently seen. Fortunately Real Estate is a long term investment and the people we work with understand this, so as long as you have the time to wait, they can be quite satisfying financially.
Just as a final note, the damage companies can cause by being irresponsible rains down on all the other good and honest companies that are out there. People who abuse the opportunity that is out there all for personal greed and to line their pockets deserve to take the fall that accompanies it. I’m not saying all of these companies are indeed at fault, but if they are, they deserve to have the book thrown at them.
